Interview: Andy Signore tells us how he got Deadpool into 'Honest Trailers' on Tomorrow Daily

May 13, 2016

Transcript

[MUSIC]
Welcome back to the show we are super excited to welcome this next guest to the show you probably know honest trailers which he created.&gt;&gt; Yeah and movie fights and so much of our screen junkies Andy [UNKNOWN].
Thanks for stopping by, bud!
Yeah.
Thanks for having me guys.
Yeah, absolutely.
I'm excited to be here.
You have had a pretty major week at Honest Trailers.
We have.
We've had an epic week I think you could say.
Deadpool showed up in your honest trailer
For Deadpool.
He did.
And argued with the Voice.
He sure did.
Does the Voice have an official name?
The real person is named John Bailey, but does the Voice have a name, that's a great question.
No one's asked that before.
Should name him the Voice.
No, he has like a family, he has a broken marriage, he has a kid who yells at him, so we do have a character.
Right, there is a.
But I don't think we've ever given him a name.
So that's a good thought.
Maybe I'm gonna start thinking about that.
So okay, so you were able to get Ryan Reynolds not only to do this but also have him in the costume, kind of a big deal.
[INAUDIBLE] We tricked you there.
Really?
It was just his voice.
He was actually in England.
That's.
Wow.
[INAUDIBLE]
And we took the promos because we needed to separate when he was talking, when he wasn't.
So you could feel like he's talking to the guys.
Talking to us.
But yeah he just did the audio and it was Several recording sessions that we did with Ryan Reynolds, which was insane to me that that actually all transpired.
How did that come together?
Did you guys reach out to him?
Yeah, so I saw the movie in theaters, and Spencer, our write and I, were like how are we gonna do this on this trailer because we just knew immediately.
They did like on a Credits maybe another stuff from my [CROSSTALK]
If you're a stick.
Well, I didn't mean to say that, but it's like they're doing our tone like this is it.
If we're gonna do a movie-
How do you top [CROSSTALK] yeah.
So, how are we gonna build a top?
You can't, and a joke and joke cuz that is never successful.
So, immediately after we move, we gotta try and get Ryan Reynolds he's like dude Deadpool in the trailer.
And I think at that point We were feeling a little cocky cuz we're like, we got the Russo brothers were on record being fans.
Sure.
And we've had other people who are like, if we're ever gonna be able to finally, I'd always had this dream, if we're ever gonna finally get a celebrity to do their own trailer I was like, this is the perfect one.
Their marketing has been-
Right.
Spot on and so,
Breaks the fourth wall.
It's like, this is the perfect example of how you would do this.
Yeah
So, correct and so I just made it my mission and then I started on Twitter, is how I did it.
And so I
Wow
Started campaigning on Twitter.
Hashtag Deadpool for the Deadpool honest trailer and it had gotten traction.
So many of our fans across the web.
We had a fan Janine who was just making posters and she would send them every two days.
That's awesome.
And so we [UNKNOWN] the writer and Ryan, they were the only ones on Twitter.
Rhett Reese eventually wrote back and was like, sorry I'm busy writing Deadpool 2.
And I was like fair excuse.
Okay, yep.
[LAUGH] And then after a little while I got a little ping on my, I log in, it's like Ryan Reynolds is following you on Twitter.
What?
And then I see in my inbox a message from Ryan.
And I'm just like And it was just a very polite, long email that's like hey dude, what's up, I got your messages.
[LAUGH] [CROSSTALK] Exactly, and he's like I'm a big fan of the Green Lantern trailer, which was crazy, you guys are awesome, and then he just went to See like I'm really busy, I'm down to the, what do you want, what are you thinking?
Yeah
Then the revealed they try to an Honest Trailer for the movie apparently.
The end credits was gonna be-
Wow.
Their own Honest Trailer.
Wow.
So they wrote one, I still haven't seen it, I'm dying to see what they did.
But it didn't work.
They didn't feel like it was funny or they couldn't muster it.
See, they're harder to write.
They got to call you.
I was gonna say, they should call you.
Harder to write, than they think.
But anyway, long story short, I knew that I got one email back because I can't hound this guy.
He's polite enough that he's reached out, lesson to all of you who are trying to get an a lister on your shows Don't hound them too much.
Right.
Yeah.
You gotta be polite, you gotta be cool about it.
So either I'm trying to like, I know, exactly, there is like a protocol somewhere kinda.
And I've had some prep, I've had some embarrassing encounters before that I know I regret like loosing up.
Life experience leading up to the point.
But now I know, I'm a pro now, like I gotta do, hey, what's up Ryan, be normal, and I just pitched him back, here's what we wanna do.
If you're not up for it, we get it.
I wanted to give him an out just so I know he was real interested.
And sure enough the dude was so interested.
Not only that, but then he emails me like no studio, no PR, no agent, just direct
Cool guy.
Cool dude who just gets it and was like how do we make this good for you guys?
And he ended up doing it over the course of four or five weeks And it was just insane.
It was just so fun to work with him.
He got it, there was no joke he turned down.
There were some he wanted to adjust or make funnier, but I just love that he was up for everything.
Yeah it sounds like he was super game for it.
And it shows in the honest trailer because it's really funny.
It's perfect.
How do you guys set about
Making one of those from the start.
Yeah, what's the process?
So, I did it with my partner Brett way back who helped me sort of through the show.
And no, he left I think trailer 15 or something, we're now at 150.
Wow.
So I've been leading the process since then.
And the team really now is our head writer Spencer Gilbert does most of the writing now.
He'll watch the movie.
We all have seen the movie.
We'll all sort of share some notes and then he'll go for a deep dive and do the first draft.
Mm-hm.
And then after some notes we've shared, then we'll go and I'll punch in through and be like, this isn't working.
We need to go broader here.
Stuff like that.
And then usually it's two or three more drafts That we then go through.
I think Deadpool has ten drafts.
Cuz we really were like, let's make sure we do this one right.
Plus we had time, usually we don't have time, we're always like a week ahead.
And we have to get it out the door.
But that's the process.
We watch the movie.
I think Spencer sometimes watches it three and maybe a fourth by skimming.
And then we give it to editor and it usually takes about a week and a half.
Wow.
Like, I think it would take longer than that.
Because I would feel like I would need to watch a movie like eight times-
Yeah.
To really get all of those nuances, but I'm sure now it's more of a, have it down to a science.
There is a bit of a formula.
Yeah a formula.
There's a bit of a formula of we know, okay from blank comes-
Yeah, yeah.
We know which jokes we're setting up, and then we're obviously trying to challenge ourselves.
Which is what did How do we mix the format?
We do it in boyhood where we just didn't even have a voice over.
And I like when we challenge ourselves like that, where it's like, how do we **** with our format?
It doesn't feel like-
Do you have a set or rules for yourself as far as [CROSSTALK]
Yeah, I push a lot.
I mean, it's always be honest, which sounds stupid.
But it's not sarcastic trailers it's not It's not about, I mean, we make jokes, the show is a comedy series, but is this honest is a question I'm always asking.
You have three rules, be honest, be a trailer, and be the.
[LAUGH]
But the trailer is actually the other rule, like is this trailer enough?
Sometimes we go off on too many tangents, where I feel like we're just doing a commentary.
Sure.
Where it's like, how do we make, and then usually it's funnier because of that, when we really stick to the
Editing.
Guy being a trailer voice trying to do it is something you wanna stick into it.
So when you guys started doing Honest Trailers, obviously it was a lot smaller than it is now.
But, like you mentioned earlier, the Russo brothers, when they were making it, you guys didn't know this.
The Russo brothers, when they were making Winter Soldier, tried to make it specifically Honest Trailers-proof.
So what is that like?
What is that feeling like to know that there are filmmakers out there going like we have to do this right so that Honest Trailers doesn't just kill us.
I mean it's insane.
The story also was like we didn't know that when we were making our Winter Soldier trailer.
And we were like we're having a tough time, it's pretty good.
Pretty good.
We can nitpick, which we say in the trailer get ready for nitpicking, but
Then we learn later that, yes, they were like, apparently, and then now we've talked to them a couple times and Joe and Anthony were like, yeah, I can't tell you how many times we said, I don't wanna hear this is an effin honest trailer.
Gotta bulk up this logic.
[LAUGH]
And it's like amazing to me.
That's great.
That's the goal.
Like, of course, we don't hate movies.
Make movies better.
It's not that hard to just sometimes do one last comb through.
Like Does this make sense?
Sure.
Like can we just say a line to make sure this makes [LAUGH] sense?
Because it's a movie.
If we're into the movie and invested, you let a lot of things slide.
But sometimes movies just don't [INAUDIBLE]
So how do we get Zach Snyder to watch [INAUDIBLE]
[LAUGH]
Yeah, yeah.
I didn't say that, but I'm with you.
Or Michael Bay.
Can we just mail him
A flash drive with every episode in it.
I will say, the Batman-Superman trailer is one that I think everyone is very, there's a lot of pressure on us now.
[LAUGH] It writes itself, kind of.
[CROSSTALK]
Max Landis wrote, my favorite movie of the year is gonna be the Honest Trailer for Batman
[CROSSTALK] Well we are very up to task.
And we are very excited for that one.
Yeah we're very excited, thank you.
I cannot wait to see the response that [UNKNOWN] have.
Is there a part of you that gets excited when a big movie like that?
You're like it's a little piece of gold.
I think that's just- that is a whole history.
I don't want to take forever, but it's like
That the DC fans are so mad about it.
Yeah.
It's like, you're allowed to like the movie.
Yeah.
Yes.
It's okay.
I didn't like the movie.
I'm allowed to not like the movie.
Yeah.
And I feel like I have justified reasons why
I didn't like the movie, I loved those characters.
And I get that there are different versions of the characters, but when you're spending $200 million on a Batman v Superman movie, you do sort of have to please the masses.
Yeah.
You'd think.
It's what your job is.
You'd think.
That's one of the things though that I feel makes Honest Trailers so successful is that you guys never come from a
Place of mean-spirited-ness.
There's never a, like I said no sarcasm, it's not like a, we're gonna rip this movie to shreds because we hate these things, it's because you love movies, and you want them to be better, you want them to have better logic.
And audiences deserve to have that experience Experience of a better movie going, just a total experience.
That you guys are willing sort of rib it hard.
But still it's all in good nature, it's all very good natured, it's all very, you love movies.
You can really Get that through honest trailers.
Like you never feel like these guys hate movies.
Like, this is terrible.
No, we definitely love movies and thank you.
That's definitely our goal.
We never try and just crap on a movie.
We definitely are trying to crap sometimes on the logic or the choices certain movies have made but we always try to justify it with a reason of
This is why this isn't working.
Like, why would I believe in this.
And so we never try to just hate on the movie.
Even with movies we hate, we do, sorta like Transformers, we just call out how lazy it is.
Right.
And that's a way to sort of
Explain why we hate it without just saying, **** this movie.
I think we might have said, **** that movie just because.
[LAUGH]
God.
We gotta watch this movie after the fifth one or whatever it was.
[LAUGH]
But we try and share why.
It's like Micheal Bate literally reuses shots in the movie.
[CROSSTALK]
And he left green screen screens on some.
Like, how do you mess, like come on.
If you're not even gonna be fully invested Neither are we, so we call out when they're wrong.
And that's fair, yeah, exactly.
You're very fair about your honesty.
It's never in an effort to be extra mean to a movie.
And again, it's honest.
You really do keep it honest.
Honesty is key.
Yeah, I think the big difference for me is
Not trying to convince someone that something is bad, you know?
It's just like we're trying to just call out what's there and not say here's our argument for why you should not like this.
Correct.
Right, exactly.
So what is your favorite Honest Trailer that is published thus far?
It changes a lot but I'm really proud of the Les Miserables one, from Les Miserable.
We just decided to do it on Musical One and I just did not have any faith that it was gonna work even I was like I don't.
But I loved the challenge, I'm like of course we're doing this.
But we got a Broadway songwriter who I'm not allowed to say his name.
But a legit Broadway-
It rhymes with blender boy blubber.
Maybe.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
[LAUGH]
So, we got like
But he composed songs like a Musicals you guys know.
I work on Musicals you know.
And so, it's like without it's crazy to me, and he really helped us.
We wrote the lyrics and did it, but then
He totally made the music and sung, helped us sing it.
Amazing.
because to sing in that style is really tough.
Yeah that's not easy.
And I didnt think, like how are we gonna do this?
And we wrote it, and then it just come out, and I was like this is so fun.
So I love when we can do those.
So that one stands out.
And I really like Superman four.
We went back.
it's a crazy movie.
An 80s trailer.
And it was back in the day, where now every movie's been out.
But it was like, we found one comment who was like, do that movie.
We were like, okay, one guy, here it is!
Here it is Jeffrey.
I like the weird ones.
I bet that guy's head exploded when he saw that it went up.
He was like, they were listening to me!
And then Lion King is a AV by help it's just a no one knows
[INAUDIBLE]
[LAUGH]
And talking about that little circle of life bit which still makes me laugh.
The one that always makes me laugh is when you guys say instead of Michael Kane, it's my cocaine.
My cocaine.
Like that's the funniest thing, it's so simple, and it's a pure great joke.
He wrote it in the script and I didn't get it.
And I'm like my cocaine?
My cocaine.
And then I said it and I'm like
Yeah, I got it.
[BLANK_AUDIO]
To wrap up, what are the sort of other things you are doing?
You know Movie Fights.
I [UNKNOWN] [CROSSTALK]
Fans loved you.
Wow.
You had an aggressive fighter against you.
I think you were a little like, what?
I didn't know.
Yeah.
People take that show seriously.
[LAUGH] Indeed.
I had a blast though.
It was really fun.
Thank you for coming.
I'd love to have you back.
Yeah.
Movie [INAUDIBLE] is coming.
We have Kevin Smith on tonight.
Great.
And we have some other things coming.
We're gonna be at Comic Con actually.
We just announced.
Awesome.
We're doing a three day event there with live programming and stuff.
So that's gonna be very fun.
And then you have [INAUDIBLE] plus, is where if people want more than just what's on YouTube
We have over a dozen shows there.
Kevin Smith's doing a show, Howard [UNKNOWN], Jeremy John's, Chris Stuckman, lots of exciting stuff there.
Honest Trailer's commentaries where we'd share more of a longer.
There was a whole sound guy who I was worried was gonna kill Ryan Reynolds when I sent him randomly from Twitter to record the sound with him.
All that's on our commentary, all that stuffs on plus which you can get through junkies.com But yes, it's very busy, I'm very excited and very lucky that we get to make so much fun [UNKNOWN].
That's all very fun.
Yeah, that's amazing.
So check that out.
Thank you, yeah, Screen Junkies.
Just check out Screen Junkies, there's so much great stuff over there.
And then if you wanna follow Andy on Twitter, is that @andysignore, right?
@andysignore, that's right.
Crazy.
Well, thank you again for-
Thank you for having me yes, let's get you both on the show.
Got it.
Yeah.
I will fight against you.
Now, I'm scared.
[LAUGH]
We'll have a fight.
And if you ever wanna make an Honest Trailer about Tomorrow Daily, we will take the heat.
[LAUGH]
All right, we will be right back with some Intuit, and also little game show.
Uh-oh.
So, that'll be exciting.
But stick around to Tomorrow Daily.